Ecclestone delighted with F1's young guns

Ecclestone reckons that young emerging talent such as Juan-Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen beating Michael Schumacher down to third in Monaco is good news. For the last 20 laps the three drivers ran wheel-to-wheel in one of the closest races staged on the streets of Monte Carlo.

"The only thing that would have been better is if Alonso had been third," said Ecclestone "We'd have had three young lions on the podium which would have been even better.

"The result was good. Montoya's a popular guy, good for Formula 1, good for everything. Nice. He's not used to losing, Michael."

Ecclestone still believes that this season's results, which have turned up maiden wins for Kimi Raikkonen and Giancarlo Fisichella, and show five different victors from seven races, have little to do with the changes to the regulations introduced at the beginning of the year and designed to spice up the action,.

"It just means that the other teams have got going again," he said. "When they're on the track, one behind the other, it's nothing to do with rules. It's just that the other people have got their act together. We've been lucky. All the races have had incidents in them, which is good."